STEPHIE'S BEADS AND BAUBLES

As anyone who  has followed my site knows is how much I have struggled with my Etsy shop and staying open vs closing down. It has been a big struggle in both my head and my heart.

After great thought and working on my studio . Also working on myself to get motivated again, I am going at this again. My current Etsy shop site will be pretty much supplies and for now a few holiday pieces. However, we are going to open a second shop for handmade stuff. David has been working on his studio and for the very first time, very soon he will have his studio all set up in  his own separate room from mine. We are both very excited. I have been making stuff up that we will finish together.

We have wanted to do some pieces together for a long time and so that is our plan. Since I still have so many sequins to sell  ,I will list those in my current shop and then as soon as we have about ten or so pieces completed we will open a second shop for our bead and stained glass combined efforts.

We have done pieces for a friend of ours, some connectors made of stained glass, wire wrapping and charms, so we have done a few and know how to do them. I am working on some wine bottle charms with a Christmas theme and some dangles to hang around the house at Christmas so when he is set up, we can get those all made up !! I am going ot finish learning how to make them myself, well, I know HOW, just have to actually do it on my own. I have to get comfortable with a soldering iron, but I figure I have survived many a glue gun, I can do a soldering iron !!

Here are a few things I have gotten done so far !!

I had some random beads , the top of the hat being a beautiful stone bead, but the other two, red and white are from old necklaces I took apart !! A cute Santa hat and I added a small green bead to it for some color !!

These are wine bottle charms. They  will have a top piece made of copper foil glass that I will customize with a charm or picture . This dangle will hang on it, and then it will hang on that beaded ring you can see in the back ground, and I will make a silver, white and clear one for the other wine bottle charm. I thought it would be fun for people to put on a wine bottle they are gifting at a Christmas party !! You can also put them on your own wine glass to make the table more festive !!

This is a dangle like the ones I  have been making for my customer turned dear friend. Instead of a dragonfly them, they are Christmas themed, it is a lot harder on my own, she is very creative and I look forward to us getting back to her projects, love working together on all the pretty things we make. I did some wire wrapping and added charms,

Wine bottle charms, the light color seems to have a hard time taking a clear picture

I tried a new wire wrap technique with seed beads that I had never done before, kind of fun, look forward to trying again !! I bet my friend would love to try a version of this on our projects, I cannot wait to show her, hopefully she will see this post !!

So, I plan to make a few more pieces made up so we can have a bunch made up when Davids studio is ready to go !!

The other thing I am working on is pendants to sell. They will be on my supply shop, my current one. I just made these, my first ones , last night. I still have to attach the bails, but for pictures sake I set them on the bail to see how they would look !! I have to finish the backs on each one, just did one for now.

I plan to do more pendants with the copper foil as well. These are easy to make and really fun, until I get in there and do the stained and leaded glass pendants.

arghhh, this color is  not this weird pink color, it is much more muted than that. I will have to probably use my iphone to list it, it actually does better with color than the camera I used today !!

again, the color is way off, it is a pretty orangey pink, but more dusky than wake you up bright,  ha !!

okay, this is a bit better , lol , still not great, but better than the glow in the dark pictures !!

So, I am working hard to get stuff in my supplies shop and stuff to finish up for our new shop. Still working on the shop name, but very excited !!!

I am sure everyone is sick and tired of my indecision, but it was only borne of frustration. I would work so hard and get no sales. I decided to change it up and work on stuff I enjoy and love doing. Try new things and experiment. Anyone who loves to create knows you have to create if that is your nature, so I honestly cannot walk away from it !!

I will work harder on SEO and learning how to promote my shop. It is all Greek to me and so will take me some time, but I am determined to figure it all out !!

I really do appreciate your patience and hope I can share stuff you will enjoy here !!! I have a lot of ideas !!!

Thanks so much,

Stephie